Sometimes during the sales process, we business developers, need to allow the influencers in the organizations that we are soliciting to, sell our services for us.  Who are the Influencers?  Many organizations have them, the champions that believe whole-heartedly in your product or service.  They are the ones that ultimately solidify the business opportunity within their particular organization.

I had that type of experience this week.  I had been speaking with a gentleman over the phone over a period of 5 months.  He was expressing to me some of the issues within his organization related to employee conflict, lack of a training for staff, and lack of adequate training resources within the organization.  He also indicated that he was frustrated with continually changing the training providers for eahc different training focus.

I immediately saw this as an opportunity for our company to facilitate a long range training plan for this organization, but would require some careful planning to be sure that the objectives were met.  When I set the face to face meeting, my contact was actively involved in the sales process and I allowed him to take the lead role as he had a very good understanding of his organization’s needs, and we were able to leverage our relationship to gain instant trust with the other decision makers.  We ‘tag-teamed’ the sales process, and he is a member of the client organization!.

Leveraging the Power of this particular influencer was key to the success of this meeting.  It is a great concept if you can apply it to your business relationships.  Trust and integrity are key to gaining any credibility.  The influencers are powerful and they are everywhere.  We need to ensure that they are on our side, and be persistent enough to ensure, that you are the vendor that they promote, within their organization.

Mathew Cey

Business Development

Morris Interactive